


Summer Nights

by Leletha



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), And I'm not sorry, Dreams and Nightmares, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Humor and Romance, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Canon Fix-It, Summer, Why Did I Write This?, Wolves, seriously this thing is a fluffball, there's no actual plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leletha/pseuds/Leletha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their days are a scatter of stolen clothes and chasing games, dreams and wishes, memories and possibilities, wolves and bears and sparrows and hawks, once and future picnics, monsters real and imaginary, fights and laughter, broken edges and healing wounds. Sometimes at night they say true things. </p><p>[Or: fluff and randomness. Still not a “Nightfall” story.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Or: I was bouncing ideas off my best friend and she said “ooh, I like it – write it!” multiple times about multiple things, and that got mixed up with me being bored at an American Independence Day fireworks show and collecting background characters from the crowd. So. Enjoy?

Gon surveys the room as if it were a primeval forest and not, for example, a hotel room inhabited by two teenage boys (forests are somewhat less messy), and tries to think like his prey.

_If I were a green jacket,_ he wonders,  _where would I be?_

This approach works perfectly well with animals, and not at all with clothing that has mysteriously found itself missing. Again.

It’s not that mysterious, but he refuses to give up and just  _ask_ without at least trying. It’s got to be somewhere, and he’s going to find it, hopefully before Killua wakes up enough to laugh at him and look smug and refuse to be helpful.

He tries to put together what had happened the night before, because he’s pretty sure he’d had it then. Hmmm… 

They’d come back to their room, and they’d made increasingly ridiculous ice cream concoctions with _all_ the toppings because Killua had run off and found a candy aisle while Gon had been distracted by a big and happy puppy that had fallen in love with him, and they’d thrown only some of the toppings at each other because neither of them actually liked the little red spicy things, and they’d made fun of some really old horror movies while eating the ice cream things, and they’d laughed until they hurt themselves, and they’d headed off to bed at some absurdly late hour.

And then Killua had had a nightmare, one of the bad ones.

Gon had woken up not because his friend had cried out – as far as he knows, and he would know, Killua sleeps quite silently no matter what’s going on in his head – but at the scent of distress and horror/terror and helplessness, and the sick and furious feeling that scent stirred up inside Gon’s stomach. His body had reacted even before his brain woke up and started thinking.

It had been bright in the hotel room from the moon and the clear skies and the lights of the lakeside resort town outside. They almost always leave a window open, if they can, because Gon likes the fresh air as long as they’re not in too big of a city and because Killua hates to be locked in without an escape route. In the light from it he’d been more than able to pick out Killua pacing around the room, anxious and fixated, no longer thinking, seeing nothing and avoiding all of it by instinct and that feline grace. He’d still been caught in the grip of the nightmare as he checked corners and doors and touched walls with claws out, hunting for a threat that wasn’t there, back and forth, blank eyes blind with whatever horror had crawled out of his memories or his imagination while he slept.

If Gon could guard him from these nightmares he would. He hates that there’s no way to know when they will strike, that Killua is so defenseless against them. They probably happen more often than Gon knows about. He knows that Killua will not tell him about things like this, if he doesn’t think Gon needs to know.

His best friend had come to a stop, if only for a moment, in the open window, leaning with shoulders slumped on the window ledge as if gasping for breath, all white and pale in the moonlight. Gon would have enjoyed the sight – Killua is quite gorgeous, and Gon is well aware of it, has been for a while but has come to appreciate it in different ways as they’ve both grown older. But even praise like  _amazing_ still flusters the other boy, so Gon has reasoned that he probably will not appreciate  _beautiful_ – if he hadn’t had more important things to think about.

“Killua,” he’d called, getting out of bed and moving to where his friend could see him – not sneaking up on him, not grabbing him, not anything that could be construed, in half-awake and frightened shadows, as a threat. “Killua, it’s okay. We’re together, we’re safe. You awake?”

Seconds passed. Gon was patient, thinking  _peace_ and  _affection_ and  _safety_ and  _reassurance_ ; Killua cannot consciously scent these things the way Gon can, but they reflect in his breathing and heartbeat and aura.

“Yeah.” It was more a breath than a word.

“You all right?”

“Yeah.” Faster that time, if no more convincing – Gon didn’t believe it for a second, but it had been better than nothing, and maybe in time it would be true.

“C’mon back to bed,” he’d invited, softly. They’ve been sharing the same bed since what feels like  _always_ , now, although it does cut down on the number of pillows they can throw at each other (maybe a good thing, definitely a good thing at times like this, when all Gon wants to do is hold on to him and never let go). “Okay?”

He’d managed not to reach out and pull, had let Killua turn away as if hiding, as if embarrassed to be seen not in control, or as if he were ashamed, as if the nightmare was reflected in his eyes and Gon might see it and recoil from him.

_Gods, no, Killua, whatever you were dreaming about, it was not your fault,_ Gon did not say, only held his tongue and continued to think of _calm_ and _acceptance_ and _quiet_ until his friend was settled back on his side of the bed and Gon could climb in beside him, sharing out the covers again without a fight.

Still –

“Can I pet you?” Gon had asked, a minute later.

Killua had heard that, at least, and actually turned to look at him, the horror clearing from his blue eyes, dark now in the night. “Huh?” He’d looked genuinely puzzled and very, very vulnerable.

Maybe it had sounded a little off. Gon hadn’t worried about it, just barged forward and trusted Killua would be able to pick out his actual meaning from everything he tried to say. “Well, now you’ve moved,” he’d complained, but cheerfully. “Move back. C’mon. I’ll stop if Killua doesn’t like it. Please?”

His best friend  _ever_ had given him what Gon privately considers the ‘you are CRAZY’ look. But he had, turning so that his back was to Gon and face half-hidden in the nest of pillows he’d constructed when Gon hadn’t been willing to steal some back earlier.

Some days Gon can’t bear the trust in that. Killua trusts very few people. Likes, yes. He likes a fair number of people. But trusts enough to turn his back on, still with the stink of nightmare-fear on him?

Gon can count those people on one hand and still have fingers left.

He’d reached out and run his fingers through the soft white hair at the nape of his friend’s neck, petting as if he were a cat, then twisted his hand around to run his knuckles down the other boy’s spine to the middle of his back, carefully and reassuringly, then done it all again. And again. And again, combing through his hair and adding a touch just a bit too firm to be called a caress down his back.

Part of him had noticed that Killua had worn one of  _his_ shirts to bed – one of the interchangeable ragged workout ones that have been beaten to pieces and wrung out in a thousand washes and probably wasn’t that faded to start with, but is now incredibly soft – and had stored that away for later when he was more awake.

_(the movements of Killua breathing under his hands, steadying out from rapid and agitated to a slower, smoother rhythm as panic faded away, and the beat of his heart a pace behind; Gon wants to wrap his arms around him and keep him there in the embrace that Killua will never allow, that he recoils away from just slightly as if afraid to be helpless and trapped)_

And maybe he’d been acting like a wild animal again, grooming someone who is part of his pack, who matters to him so much, but Gon didn’t care. Has never cared. And, at the same time, cares so very much.

At this point he thinks it’s fairly safe to say that yes, he loves Killua. He always had, of course he had, had loved him right from the start with the pure fervor of a kid – they were the best of friends and always, always would be, and nothing was ever going to break that, not even when Gon was blind-deaf-numb-but- _hurting_ with rage and hate and _stupid stupid stupid_. They’d fixed that, in the end, although they’d hurt each other deeply in the process. None of the physical wounds had actually scarred, but they’d lingered. There’d been a tension between them that they’d hated but fed like a pet for too long.

But Gon isn’t twelve anymore, he’s sixteen now and… yeah. He’s sure. Now it’s complex and dangerous (and isn’t that danger something he’s always loved?) but that pure clear heart of it still lingers even in the face of _we are not kids anymore_. They’re still better together. And anyway, Killua still smells really good _,_ maybe even better than before, and Gon needs to understand that. He wants to bury his face in Killua’s throat and just _breathe_ for the rest of his life, for forever.

_(soft hair caught between his fingers, careful not to pull – warm skin smooth except for the invisible ridge of a half-hidden scar – solid bone and firm muscle under battered-soft cloth beneath the back of his hand. stop. again.)_

Gon doesn’t ever want to lose him, even more so after he almost _had._ While they were apart he would find himself saying things and actually physically stumbling when he didn’t get the response he’d been half-listening for. It didn’t feel right to not have that presence balancing him and snapping at him and pushing him to be better – to outdo the person who could always keep up with him and match him, and to live up to the half-hidden worship he’d seen every once in a while in those eyes out of the corner of his.

This, he wanted – this, without the nightmares: his best friend and closest companion drifting off to sleep under his hands, comfortable with him, happy with him. He’d savored the opportunity to touch, although perhaps too much, as his hands had spent more time brushing through true-white, wolf-white hair and drifted lower with every pass.

Killua had startled back awake at one point, just as Gon had noticed this, and he hadn’t even thought about it – had moved one hand to the other boy’s hip and held him there, murmuring, “Sorry. It’s all right. Sorry.” He’d wanted to add, “Look at how well my hand fits right here, like it’s supposed to be here,” although he knew Killua wasn’t awake enough to notice that.

“Issssso-kay,” his friend had slurred, mostly buried in the covers and all but purring, almost asleep again, so many of his defenses down for once, shattered by the opposing blows of nightmares and affection. “Jus’ surprised. ‘s nice.”

Eventually it must have put them both back to sleep, because that mumbled comment is the last thing Gon remembers.

And now it’s morning again, and Killua is soundly asleep as if he’d never had a nightmare in his life, and as if he’s never going to get out of bed ever again, and more importantly, as if he hadn’t hidden Gon’s favorite jacket again.

Last night was _last night_ , it changes nothing. Even if – if that was something they _did_ , that and more – it would change nothing, Gon hopes. They would still be _them_.

Gon is awake and Killua is not – this is an excellent opportunity to get an edge, or at least the first move of the day, in their ongoing game that’s part play and part war and part competition and part pure fun.

Little spicy red ice cream topping things are still scattered around the floor, so Gon gathers up a handful of them and entertains himself by flicking them at Killua’s blanket nest from a safe distance away.

He doesn’t get through all of them before he’s rewarded with a growled, “Stoppit!”

“Where’s my jacket?” Gon demands cheerfully, since he knows he’s out of reach and the chances of lightning first thing in the morning and _indoors_ at that are low.

“Wha’ jacket?”

It’s not a hard question and Gon’s not going to let him get away with it this time. He throws another spicy candy bit and is foiled by Killua pulling the blankets over his head and disappearing. “ _My_ jacket. The green one!”

He misses most of his best friend’s response because it and he are buried in the covers against further pelting with horrible candy, but he makes out a long string of mumbling and then, then, very clearly, “monstrosity”.

“Killuaaaaaa!” He’s not asleep, and he’s not innocent in this, and Gon’s not falling for it. He knows Killua too well.

One pale hand pulls the covers back just enough to allow Killua to glare at him. Gon refrains from throwing more candy at this target, but only because he’s almost out and doesn’t feel like crawling around on the floor looking for more. “Where’d you leave it?” Killua asks, as if he’s actually helping.

“On the end of the bed.” This is true.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Killua declares imperiously. Gon is pretty sure that if he tried to make the same announcement from under that many blankets and with his hair absolutely _everywhere_ , it wouldn’t work nearly as well.

He’s out of candy bits. The bed is probably full of them now, and he’s not going to find out until tonight, by which point he will have forgotten that they’re there. Another excellent reason not to restock on ammunition just yet. They don’t seem to melt, though, so it’s not his problem right now. Gon resorts to more direct measures, and climbs onto his side of the bed to poke the heap of blankets repeatedly. “Where’d you put it THIS time?”

“If you keep doing that,” Killua warns him, clearly wide awake now, “I’ll bite you.”

Gon considers this. Killua will bite him. This is true. But then again…

There are worse ways to start a morning.

* * *

“I’m gonna find it,” says Gon, bouncing up and down on the other side of the bed a couple of times just to get his point across. 

Killua frees up one hand just long enough to wave a sarcastic _bye_ before burrowing back into the covers – it’s cold in here, for all it’s warm outside all the time, stupid resort managers and their stupid thermostat – and pretending to go back to sleep. He doesn’t, of course. Although he gives serious consideration to at least watching the search, because he’s pretty sure Gon hasn’t thought to put on a shirt yet. That is always worth watching. He will persist in not wearing one to bed, and Killua, coward that he curses himself for, has not yet managed to convince him to put on more clothes.

He hasn’t tried very hard. Every time he decides to, something in him howls in agony and distress and the rest of him never even gets started, because _argh_. He’s spent his entire life making his body do things it didn’t want to, why does it have to start fighting back _now?_ And over _Gon_ , the one person he cannot afford to lose?

In his more rational moments Killua thinks he probably should have seen this coming. Gon has been magnetic north for Killua almost since they met. (Killua knows when that happened. It was right after the third trial in Trick Tower, after the duels, when they’d been stuck in that room for far too long. When Gon had seen him at his worst, seen him kill with his bare hands, and had still wanted to _play_.) Everything else orients on him as far as the former child-assassin is concerned – why should _this_ be any different? Why, really, should he have expected to want anyone else, when all he’s _ever_ wanted is conveniently right here already?

Running around without a shirt on, first thing in the morning, which is an uncomfortably attractive sight.

Yes, admittedly it would probably make Killua’s life a lot easier _(emptier)_ if they slept in separate beds now, but there’s no good reason (that he’s willing to admit) to change a pattern that they’ve been sticking with since they were little kids. It was _stupid_ to pay for separate rooms or even separate beds when both of them together could get lost in a single bed designed for adults, even when they were fighting and sulking on opposite sides of said bed. And then they got used to it – Killua had never shared a bed with anyone else in his life, and yet…it had been right. Even when Heavens Arena put them in separate rooms, Killua is pretty sure he’d never spent more than five minutes or so at a time in his. Gon hadn’t been there, so what had been the point?

Besides, he doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t want to (stupid body ganging up on him with his stupid heart and stupid amounts of his stupid mind, why is being human so _complicated?_ ). This, at least, he can have, if nothing else, however it hurts to stay leashed and still when the warmth only inches away seems like the only heat in a frozen world. And also Gon would want to know _why_ , and Killua can’t have that conversation right now, or, preferably, ever.

Instead he listens to Gon stomp around the room looking in ridiculous places. Admittedly, the jacket has been in some of them before, such as inside the cushions of the chair, taped to the underside of the table, and hidden among the extra towels in the bathroom. Except there are no extra towels, because someone very much _not Killua_ started a water war two nights ago and they ran out of towels trying to stop the resulting mess from leaking through the floor and into the room below. No one has yelled at them yet, so they probably got away with it.

Killua would like to state for the record that this was not his fault in any way, except that he’d left the dart gun, the one that they’d been using to radio-ID-chip-tag wolves for the past few days, on the bathroom sink. There had probably been a good reason for that at the time. He’d realized that hot shower steam would probably not be good for it – it’s a lovely device, a weapon but not a weapon, tidy and efficient and entirely awesome – only _after_ Gon had switched on the shower.

He’d weighed _shiny new dart gun_ against _Gon in the shower_ and reasoned that there was a not-transparent shower curtain and he’d only be in there for a minute. Less than that. Except the dart gun wasn’t where he thought it was, and his resolution to not pay any attention to the naked teenage boy in the shower, who he happened to be crazy about, backfired completely as Gon interpreted that silence as Killua ignoring him and decided to get his attention by turning the showerhead on him.

Stupid flexible showerhead. And the dart gun had been under the bed anyway.

So there are really no spare towels to hide Gon’s jacket under this morning.

Eventually he hears the door shut as, presumably, Gon goes looking for his jacket.

Killua hates that jacket. He has no objection to things that are green. He actually quite likes things that are green, especially if Gon is wearing them, because _hello_ , he has eyes.

He has very few objections to things that are orange. Tigers are orange…ish…and Killua likes tigers. Tigers are awesome.

He does object to things that are green and orange _at the same time_ , because of the aforementioned _having eyes_.

Killua had held such hopes that Gon would outgrow the stupid thing. It was inevitable, surely? Gon may not have noticed that they are no longer twelve, the way he acts, but Killua has.

Oh _gods_ , has he ever. It sucks, for the record. Killua had been pretty sure of this from watching Leorio, who was, to his twelve-year-old eyes, stupid at stupid moments for stupid reasons, but now he _knows_.

It was like someone had flicked a switch one morning. He’d woken up with his best friend still asleep beside him – he’d listened to Gon breathing for a while, and basked in the sunlight that had gotten into his eyes and woken him up in the first place, and then he’d turned over to get away from it, just at the right moment to see Gon wrinkle his nose in his sleep and laugh soundlessly at something. The compulsion to edge just that little bit closer and kiss him had come out of nowhere, and he’d been _so, so_ close to doing so – no more than a breath away, his eyes sliding shut of their own accord – before Killua’s brain had woken up and started screaming _wait, what?_

Killua has a switch already and he knows how to deal with it, mostly involving making sure nothing triggers it unless it’s really, really important and something is about to kill either him or Gon (berserker blood is also stupid, for the record, and he’s just glad he didn’t get the bulk of it). He still has no idea how to get this other switch to turn off, and he’s slowly coming to the conclusion that it’s permanently switched on.

It sucks to be sixteen and crazy in love with your completely oblivious best friend. It was _easier_ when they were twelve, when he’d known only that he wanted to be where Gon was because he was fun to be with and Killua was never bored – and unexpectedly, totally, unconditionally accepted.

He doesn’t want to be thinking about this right now. He doesn’t want to think about this ever because if there’s one thing he’s not going to do it’s screw up the relationship he already has – the one that saved his life and his soul, that gave him a reason to live, that taught him how to have fun and how to be human and how to walk in the light, that makes him want to get out of bed every morning; the one he _needs_ – just because his body has chosen now to rebel against the discipline enforced on it all his life.

Killua wonders if he can beat himself into blissfully thoughtless unconsciousness with these pillows, and decides that Gon would probably notice.

The _only thing_ Killua is going to think about, relating to the fact that they’d both grown up, is that they’d gotten taller and filled out some; surely the dreaded jacket wasn’t going to fit Gon for very long.

Or something would destroy it. The life they live, that was practically inevitable. And yet nothing had.

Waiting it out had almost worked, and then they’d swung by Whale Island and at some point in the about five seconds when Killua hadn’t been looking at him Gon had acquired a new one that fit him disgustingly well.

It couldn’t be borne. If Killua had ever acquired the habit of complaining to a mother figure he would have thought to ask Mito to get it away from him again – it had surely been Mito who had acquired it or sewn it for him – but he hadn’t thought of that until again, way too late.

It’s not Killua’s fault his brain shuts down around Gon. It’s very annoying. (He’s going to find this new switch, turn it off, and tape it down. And then he’s going to smash it.)

So he’s taken up hiding the green jacket whenever he can get away with it, because eventually that will work and until then…it’s fun. Oops. Got lost. Laundry accident, terrible mess with bleach. Fell in a fireplace. No idea what happened to it. What a coincidence.

Still, it isn’t working, not for very long. Even when Killua gets very creative about losing the jacket, Gon always manages to find it again. He will wander all around the inn, or wherever, tracking where Killua had been by his scent until he found the point where Killua and jacket had parted ways.

The last time he hadn’t been able to find it, all of Killua’s chocolate stash had disappeared and they’d chased each other up and down the hallways and out windows and briefly through the hotel kitchen until someone threw a knife at them (she’d missed) and somehow they’d ended up in a fountain that Killua swore hadn’t been there when they’d arrived the night before, and so it was therefore another thing that was not his fault, but no one really believed him on that.

So, an average morning. And the jacket had survived that too.

Tracking it isn’t going to work this morning. The jacket is stuffed under the mattress on Killua’s side of the bed, right where he’d put it while Gon was catapulting caramel candies off his ice cream spoon, quite accurately, at the absurd demon monster thing on the television.

If Gon can pick that out from the rest of the chaos that is two teenage boys living in the same hotel room for more than thirty minutes, he deserves to have the bloody thing.

Killua is pretty sure he dozes off for a brief moment, into a very enjoyable half-conscious dream of Gon wandering around without a shirt on. Dreams are guilt-free and don’t count.

A very real Gon pounces on him like the ceiling’s fallen in and Killua’s awake again with an anguished yowl and following through on that threat to bite any part of his friend he can reach, which isn’t easy when said friend is using the remains of his blanket nest and a pillow to keep him pinned down.

There’s another pillow, though. They’d moved a lot of them to the floor last night, the better to sit on and occasionally throw at the television, but Killua had salvaged most of them.

“Damn!” he says two busy minutes later, after the wrestling match displaces the mattress and reveals the disputed jacket.

Gon laughs – openly, honestly, genuinely, so damn _real_ and true it hurts – and Killua can’t help but join in.

“C’mon, get dressed,” he urges - _please, please, please get dressed before the rest of me catches up and realizes you’re really_ not _and that we’re wrestling on a bed and gets the wrong idea because_ bad me, NO – “and let’s get out of here before someone complains about the noise. _Don’t bring the jacket._ ”

* * *

_to be continued in part two_


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two/Three**

* * *

 

Gon loses the subsequent fight over wearing the jacket because Killua puts all the stray candies down his back the second he puts it on. And _laughs at him._

So that’s where they all went. Damn it.

They sort of have a case at the moment, but since it mostly requires them to do what they’d be doing here anyway – run around in the woods, get into  _everything_ , hang out on the lakeshore, talk to people, and chase something every so often – it’s not taking up a lot of their time. The vaguely governmental people who brought them in on this (Gon was maybe not listening to those details) are all in favor of endangered animals, he’d gathered, but not of people importing them and introducing them to environments where they don’t belong, where it’s too warm for them, and where they’re going to run into the people who visit the resort town and the fantastically enormous lake in the depths of the wilderness park.

The vaguely governmental people (Gon has this shortened to ‘people who are paying us to run around in the woods’, which is not really shorter at all but covers the important details) would like to know who thinks it’s a good idea to release large predators in an area that can’t support them without preying on humans, and where exactly these predators happen to be right now. It is Gon’s favorite sort of Hunt in that it’s the sort of thing he’d otherwise be doing for fun on the weekends.

After breakfast they head up into the lakeside forest and the not-quite-mountains beyond, because there they have the freedom and the space to run and train and practice and spar without anyone complaining. People do, which is annoying, and it’s much more difficult to meditate and work with people interrupting.

Gon likes this place a lot. He likes the forest and the animals in it, even the wolves that shouldn’t be there. He likes the lake because it’s perfect for swimming in and even fishing in once he’s far enough away from the resort, and there’s an island sort of in the middle of the lake that looks like a funny hat.

He likes that the two of them can do more or less whatever they want whenever they want. He loves being here with Killua by his side laughing at him to keep up as they retrace their steps from a few days ago, up to the outcropping they found high over the lake and far enough off the human trails that it would be their space alone.

He breathes in the rich summer air coming off the lake as it warms, scenting the life within it and the stray edges of smoke and humanity from the resort on the shore. He centers himself on right here and right now.

He’s pretty sure that their various teachers accuse them of not practicing just to get on their nerves, rather than because they haven’t been training. They have. Gon still loves it, even more so after he burned away his power and went through the long slow process of building it back up again.

It is  _so_ indescribably good to have this again.

Even he’d thought it was impossible, and Gon doesn’t believe in impossible. He’d bargained for power and he’d paid, burned himself out and burned himself up and he’d felt, for a time, like his very soul was ashes.

He’d like to think that this was why he couldn’t see how badly Killua was hurting and couldn’t really come to terms with the lengths Killua had gone to for him. Only later, far too late, after he had been the one to walk away, had he learned that Killua had basically started a war and threatened to take apart a good chunk of the world if the world didn’t give Gon back. Maybe the ashes in his core were why he’d forgotten some of the things he’d said in his madness, and why he couldn’t see past both masks, the one that he’d put up to protect himself and reassure the people who cared about him, and the one his very best friend in all the world had raised against him to protect  _him_ .

“No,” Killua had said, when they’d met again after only a few months apart, both knowing that they never wanted to do that again. Gon had been afraid that they wouldn’t be able to hunt together anymore, with his powers all ashes and the last traces of mist. “No, I don’t believe that. I don’t  _accept_ that.”

They started learning to do this in those days, all on their own, without being taught. Killua’s idea.

Today with the sun well up over the lake Gon sits down across from his best friend and closes his eyes, ready. They started by counting each breath together, at first, but now they slip into the rhythm automatically, comfortably.

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

He steadies his heart and his thoughts, and the fire settles against his skin.

Gon breathes, and reaches out without moving, feeling the fire – light – heat – warmth – life – breath - power of  _nen_ come to his command and wrap around him. He pushes it outward, gently and inevitably like a familiar stretch. It expands beyond him, and he remembers.

“I don’t care,” Killua had said. “I don’t care if you can’t remember how it feels. Somewhere inside you there’s a switch that’ll make it work again. I  _know_ . You just need to remember how it feels.” Gon had not been bothering to protest at this point, or to say that he’d already thought of this. “Look,” his friend had insisted. “Sit.” Gon had sat down with him out of sheer reflex. “Give me your hands.”

He had.

“Close your eyes. Breathe with me.”

Nothing had happened, and nothing had happened, and more amounts of nothing had happened except that holding Killua’s hands was nice, why hadn’t he done this before? But then to his shock he’d felt again the warmth of aura wrapping around his hands like a favorite pair of gloves, familiar and yet not quite the same.

Just a whisper, that first time, like the touch of the breath of a kitten with its eyes shut tight and tail all ratty, still wet from the shock of its birth.

_Wait, I know that,_ something inside him, shattered and starving, had responded. And he’d reached out, weak and clumsy and grasping, but at least beginning to remember what he was reaching  _for_ , even if he couldn’t touch it, even if it could only touch the shell of his skin.

_Breathe in._ The green smell of sun on the lake, traces of a motor burning fuel heading out to the island, Killua’s warm-fur scent.  _Reach_ .  _Here I am, where are you? Find me._

It had taken months, working from that sense memory, building Gon’s powers back up on the scaffolding of Killua’s power and Killua’s faith in him and Killua’s resolve to teach him how to do it from the beginning again. Part of him did remember. Part of him just couldn’t stand to let Killua down.

So he’d clung to that feeling of something just out of reach, clawing his way back towards it as if they were climbing a rock face together in the dark. As if he’d slipped into a space with not even the slightest handhold or flicker of light, and Killua had reached out to give him something to hold on to while he searched for a grip on the unforgiving stone, groping blindly. Like he’d broken a limb that had withered with disuse, and was being taught to use it again as someone else manipulated the muscles to teach them all over again the way they were supposed to go.

Months, to nurture sparks from the ashes of a wildfire, and fan the embers into the warmth of flame again, where they’d used to measure the time it took them to learn things in days or weeks at most. They’d been some of the most frustrating months of Gon’s life, and certainly Killua hadn’t enjoyed them either. He’s pretty sure the two of them slammed more doors on each other and then shouted through them during those months than any other time before or since.

And yet, it had been so completely worth it Gon doesn’t have the words. Only the bone-deep, soul-deep feeling of it, of being whole again.

No one had ever taught them how to do this, but just over a year later it has become part of their training not just to build up their  _nen_ and train it to do what they want but to work on merging and balancing it between them. They’ve spent quite a few late nights planning what they might be able to do with this skill.

One day they might be able to work in combination, in _battle_ even, to do things together that they can’t do individually. Besides, it makes a lot of sense, they’ve figured out. An Enhancer used to building things up and reinforcing them, bringing out the power held within other entities as well as himself, and an Transmuter accustomed to turning one form of energy into another – why shouldn’t they work together?

Given that (for all they squabble and compete and cheat and brawl and fight and argue in shouted half-sentences so that one of them can’t even finish a thought without the other jumping in and trying to wrestle it to the ground) they work together so well that it feels like a blasphemy  _not_ to fight for the joy of it?

Now he breathes in unison with his best friend, and reaches out his hands because they’re close enough to touch. He doesn’t need to, but it’s easier, setting up that connection with skin against skin, and they settle into the heart of the flame and burn together, mist like light like water like breath.

_Breathe. Link with me._

And –

_There you are._

Killua; his aura not conflicting with Gon’s, pushing him away – merging instead, the boundary between them blurred.

Breathing, and thinking, and feeling: meditation and thought and planning are never very far apart for Gon, these days, because that’s how he does things. He focuses on what he wants to achieve and never quits, and meditation and  _nen_ are tools to get him there.

_Thank you,_ Gon thinks now.  _Thank you for not giving up on me._

This trick feels like gratitude, and like love –

like body heat with the space in the middle of the mattress between them, or not at all if it’s cold or if they’ve gravitated towards each other for comfort like they did last night –

like breathing together, their life forces linked –

like peace, and security, and safety –

like listening to a story from a friend he hasn’t seen in too long, knowing they’ve come out of the adventure alive and victorious –

like sparring when it feels like a dance he’s known all his life and never had to learn –

like the warmth of Killua’s hands in his, loose and relaxed but curled around his just a bit, as if to hold him there.

Gon likes that very much. He wishes, sometimes, he could do more, but… Gon is good at people; almost as good as he is with animals. Really. People are complicated, but deep inside they make sense, even if they don’t know it themselves and even if they’re lying with all they are.

He’s spent years understanding Killua – he’s never going to get bored with that – and one of the things he understands is that if he leads Killua will follow him anywhere. That he could propose a hike to the moon and Killua would roll his eyes and be scathing and tease him about it, and then walk with him anyway.

_If_ you _ask – if you lead – if I know for sure you’re not just agreeing because it’s what I want,_ _then_ –

But this is  _good_ . This might be perfect. This might be one of the places he comes back to when he needs a breath of calm in the middle of chaos. This moment. Here and now, right alongside a night spent under the stars with a campfire guttering and the familiar incomprehensible smell of the endless sea, the night he first really understood he had a friend for life.

It’s – people fuss about the word  _intimate_ , he’s learned, but it is. They’re good together, so good that that most unique form of energy, their very essences, their life forces, do not repel each other but attract and blend and link.

He wonders if Killua can feel any of what he is thinking and feeling, and decides he hopes so.

* * *

It’s glorious to run.

Gon leaps from a rock and tries to change direction in midair with only partial success, shoulder slamming into a tree branch and using the impact to slow himself before he skids down the slope and into the bushes that will probably have something with thorns in, or a lurking stickyvine. Those are great at eating the billions of mosquitoes and midges that swarm anywhere there’s shallow water, but nasty if you happen to touch them, and Gon doesn’t fancy escaping from one – it’ll take far too much time and the sticky secretions burn, too. He has to drop his hands to the ground to bring himself back under control, digging his fingers into the ground cover of dried-out grass and leaves and the thousand living things that go into good earth, caring nothing for the stain on his hands and dirt under work-blunted fingernails, forgetting it the moment he adjusts his course again to adapt to the more level ground.

He spots a clearing ahead and races for it, picking up his pace so he hits the open area coming up on almost full speed, with sunlight turned green and dappled and ever-changing by the canopy overhead. He gets only a glance of it as he races through, a sense of color and light and the aggrieved whistles of a bird protesting the intrusion into its territory, leaving it all behind again in a heartbeat.

Some of the landscape is familiar, since they’ve spent some time hunting in the park, exploring and wandering, following trails and scent and spoor and tracks, and just running sometimes, like now. There’s a trail designated for humans a little ways to the east, but it doesn’t lead to the makeshift finish line so it doesn’t help him any. Gon maps what he knows of the area in his head unconsciously, drawing out knowledge of what lies ahead of him and how he can get to the target first. He’s trying to balance what’s right in front of him – a tangle of trees he’ll have to detour around, sacrificing the direct path for a more roundabout one, gaining time by vaulting over the outcropping of stone and even by pausing for the instant it takes him to get a glimpse of the route just ahead of him – with the remainder of the quickest possible way to the split tree on the lakeshore.

“I’ll race you,” Gon had challenged happily, rising from his seat on the stone and stretching his arms over his head.

There really are very few rules to this game; it’s the simplest challenge they can do over and over again. But as the challenged, Killua got to pick the finish line. He’d looked out over the lake, still kneeling on the ground – but Gon was not deceived, it was looking more and more like a runner’s crouch with every second – and pointed.

“See that tree on the shore?”

Gon leaned over his shoulder, took the opportunity to enjoy doing so, and followed his line of sight without missing a beat. “The two-topped one, with the branch trailing out over the water? With the stone at its base? Okay! Go!”

And they’d  _run_ .

In step for a moment, side by side, pace for pace, the harmony between them singing in the small sounds, but then Gon had swerved one way and Killua had dodged another and by the time he’d had the chance to look around again, away from the forest flashing by, his friend had disappeared.

For now, Gon runs alone.

There’s something perfect and pure about exercising a body that feels it’s been sitting down and staying still for too long. Gon’s power is as much in his body as in his aura; he cannot train one without the other.

He can feel his heart pounding steadily, interested and ready rather than stressed – he could go so much faster than this if he was on level ground, but level ground is no  _fun_ . Every breath tells him something about the world around him, rich and delicious and fascinating, a thousand stories and trails to follow and only a handful that matter most right now. His muscles thrum with it, rather than burning, energy well-used and so much more of it to tap, straining at the restraint he holds it behind. Releasing it is like a deep breath, a complicated trick executed perfectly after many attempts, a battle where every step slots home like his fingers folding together or magnets finding their mates.

Gon could run forever, sometimes.

It’s a great game, almost a race and almost a chase and ending up as something in between.

The goal is to get to the target first, which is why it’s a race.

The only real rule is…well, to get to the target first. But it’s perfectly fair for Gon to use  _nen_ to slow Killua down, or vice versa – the only skill off-limits is Killua’s Godspeed technique, which makes it not a game anymore. They both know Gon can’t outrun that.

But  _everything else_ is allowed, and that’s why it’s a chase, so there are two ways to play – run as fast as possible, or waylay each other. It’s almost always a mix of both, a game of strategy as much as speed.

It’s a bit like Zevil Island, only just the two of them and far more fun.

Gon has lost track of where Killua is – he could be far ahead, or behind him, or setting up some trap or distraction. It doesn’t matter. He’s enjoying the run too much to care. He leaps a fallen tree and comes down again with his boots only a hairsbreadth away from a patch of moss that might have sent him skidding out of control and into the other dead tree, which is going to crash down for good the next time a high wind or a young Hunter hits it. So Gon hits it anyway, on purpose, not even feeling the scratch of dead rough bark and the broken-off ends of shattered wood as he shields himself with  _nen_ and knocks it down to leave an obstacle in his wake.

Some of the uncountable sparrows that live around the lake and get eaten all the time by the poorly-named fishing hawks scatter away from it, scolding him, and he laughs at their outrage and the joy of the race.

A moment later he picks up a scent that brings him instantly to a halt, coming to a stop so sudden he feels like he’s humming with it, as if he can feel the reverberations running through his bones, snapped back and penned up again inside him, but racing still.

Gon can smell blood – human blood –  _Killua’s_ blood.

He can tell the difference, instinctively recognizing the scent as a danger sign, and he is momentarily afraid. It’s an automatic response, because that scent means someone or something has hurt his friend, and anything that can shed Killua’s blood is something Gon wants crushed and dead, not just because Gon would not see Killua hurt for any reason, but because anything dangerous enough to harm him is  _incredibly_ dangerous.

Gods, what if there’s another bear? The first one had been bad enough. At least they’d known she was out there. Gon had picked up her scent, heavy and rank and sullen, thick and almost blinding, the scent of milk and cubs buried in it, but  _no scent of cubs_ , so she was going to be furious, if she had been separated from her cubs when she’d been brought here. They’d tracked her together, carefully, as befit an animal that size.

Gon does not want to track another bear. She’d been  _mad_ , overheated in her thick fur, and lost, and they’d been reluctant to hurt her: it was not her fault that someone had taken her away from her babies and turned her loose here to scare tourists, far from home. Penning her in had been work, not the play that was radio-tagging wolves with the dart gun. Gon is very upset with whoever thinks setting predators loose here where they don’t belong is a good idea. Whatever they’re trying to achieve, this is not the way to do it. Finding these people would be a definite bonus to this Hunt. Gon knows a desert they could be dumped in, alone and lost with no tools and maybe, if he’s feeling generous, a single shoe left to them; that would be justice.

He takes a deep breath to home in on the scent of blood, trying to stifle the instinctive fear and focus instead on locating the source of that jarring scent. It’s like biting into metal and feeling it paint itself down the back of his throat.

Except when he locates the smear of blood it’s not very much at all, just a thin stripe across a sun-warmed stone – just enough to catch his attention and make him stop, and almost certainly deliberate.

“That’s a dirty trick!” Gon yells at the uncaring forest, impressed and annoyed all at once. Except there are no such things as dirty tricks in the chasing game, where anything goes. And yet, they still cheat like anything.

The blood is a new one. Gon will have to come up with something  _nasty_ to get back at Killua for that one. It’s not quite as bad as the peppermint oil bomb, which had been awful – Gon had run straight into that, and it had been like crashing at full speed into a wall of searing, blinding, ice-cold stink that left him staggering and reeling, the sense he relies on more than he admits obliterated in a single stroke. Peppermint had tinged every breath he took for a  _week_ , and he may never enjoy peppermint candy again. Freaking  _peppermint_ . Peppermint oil is vile.

Gon had set up a minor avalanche the next time he’d gotten the chance, in revenge, and it was a shame he’d overlooked the metallic ore in the rock face and all over the canyon, because Killua had figured out how to channel his lightning through it, making running across the stone like walking through a maze of static charges and being zapped with every step. Not any more harmful than a pinch, but extremely irritating.

Whenever they run out of more inventive ideas, they can always just ambush each other and brawl on the ground and shout and taunt and chase each other in circles. This happens a  _lot_ .

They don’t play this game in urban environments anymore, or in any space with people who aren’t Hunters – at least Hunters know to get out of their way, and are usually fast enough.

Now Gon scowls at the smear of blood as if it were the best friend he currently wants to hit over the head for scaring him, and contemplates how to make up for lost time. Killua is nowhere to be seen, so that rules out the straight-up flying tackle. There would be a pretty good chance of Gon coming out on top of that and retaking the lead: as a rule, Killua is faster, but Gon is stronger. It evens out, between them. But since Killua is not within reach, Gon will have to try something else.

A breeze brings him a new scent, and Gon gets a better idea.

He closes his eyes and takes in another deliberate breath, tastes earth and the multifaceted interconnected  _living_ smell of the forest and all the life in it, and death, as well – the blood trace at his feet, the deaths of small creatures under the claws of bigger ones, rot returning bodies to the earth, a whiff of fish. If he needed to, he could take it apart and sort it out. He could distinguish sparrows from fishing hawks from the dozens of other birds that live around the lake. He could catch the trail of that clever lynx they’ve been chasing for almost a week now and still haven’t been able to spot, much less tag. He could taste the distant traces of burning and humans that is the resort town on the other side of the lake, even the harsh ammonia smell of the island, where most of the fishing hawks nest.

But he doesn’t need to. He just needs the breath, which he holds, and envisions it turning into the liquid mist of _nen_ , infusing the breath in his lungs and the cords in his throat with power.

Gon raises his head and  _howls_ , hearing the imitation wolf cry sing out across the lake, louder than any real wolf could call.

It’s the signal for “Awake! Alert!” and means “Wake up, pay attention! Something interesting is close by and you should investigate it!”

It’s probably not audible all across the lake, but it’s loud. If he’s done it right – he’s pretty sure he has, it sounds right – the wolves that were dumped over here are now all awake and curious. There are maybe two dozen of them that Gon and Killua have tagged so far, and they’re practically stepping on each others’ tails most of the time anyway for lack of enough space to hunt.

Forest full of _wolves_ , Killua. So there. Take that.

Gon is not even slightly worried that the wolves will get hurt – Gon likes wolves and feels a kinship of sorts with them. He’s got to love an animal that’s so loyal to its friends and so fierce in their defense, and that can travel for hundreds of kilometers and bring down prey much bigger than itself, a hunting animal that works with a team. He will be very upset if Killua hurts one of them, and Killua knows that. So the other boy will have to avoid them, and he can’t smell them coming the way Gon can. Maybe that’ll slow him down just enough.

The idea that  _Killua_ might get hurt is just laughable, and Gon doesn’t spend even a moment worrying about it as he gets his bearings all over again and races for the tree on the shore.

The sun glancing off the water as he breaks out of the woods and almost stumbles as he goes from forest to gravelly lakeshore makes him blink for only a moment, and when he can see again he has a clear path to the tree. The small stones crunch beneath his feet and he pushes himself just that little bit harder to make the leap to the old stone that the two-topped tree must have grown through, tearing it apart to reach for the sun above and the rich damp soil on the edge of the lake below.

Gon slaps a hand against the trunk and declares, “I win!”

He’s just looking around for Killua, wondering how effective his wolf trick had been, when a dry and perfectly familiar voice from above says, “No you don’t.”

“Damn it!” Gon laughs, looking up. Killua is perched in one of the treetops like that elusive lynx, hidden by the leaves. But Gon can see that there’s a long scratch down the back of one of his hands, no longer bleeding but still bright against his skin.

Killua leaps down from his hiding place, landing on the rock only a couple of steps away from Gon, with his back to the lake and ready to take off again in a mad sprint, ready for another round. He loves the game as much as Gon does. They came up with it together, after all, and it is their game alone. He’s grinning with the rush and exhilaration of speed. With the sun and the race and the delight he’s taking in winning an entirely pointless game – which Gon understands perfectly, he would be gloating just as much, and has done – he glows, warm and alive.

Gon remembers, sometimes, the arrogant, wary boy he met in an endless tunnel, at once confident and confused, lost and afraid, and entirely without hope – and marvels that that boy could have become this glorious partner of his, laughing in the sun.

Now Gon laughs with him, inspired to mischief. Killua may have won the game this time, but rather than challenging him to a race back as they usually would, an opportunity for the loser to claim a victory of his own, Gon admits, “You’re right. Killua wins,” and adds, “Killua deserves a prize.”

Usually the prize for winning is to win, for the extremely short period of gloating that counts for. But there are opportunities and there are _opportunities_. And Gon can’t resist this one.

He puts his hands into his pockets and paces forward, right up close into Killua’s space, daring him to back away, meeting his eyes and holding him there with nothing more than that. Distantly, he’s aware that he’s dropped into a predatory slink, even though he’s got one hand in his shorts pocket and the other one in the pocket of his _other_ jacket, so he probably looks like a disoriented octopus.

But he’s pretty sure Killua hasn’t noticed and isn’t paying any attention to where his hands are. Instead those wide blue eyes have locked on his, pupils huge and dark. He doesn’t back away or move aside. They’re so close that Gon can almost _feel_ him breathing, in rapid pants that he doubts are entirely from the run.

It’s tearing at him, how much Gon wants to reach out and touch, to trace his fingers across the pulse in his throat, and bury his hands in soft white hair, reeling him in and - _gods_. Gon wants to kiss him, here and now and to hell with it all, so badly that it hurts like there’s something inside him ripping into his body, blood pulsing.

Gon has his hands in his pockets for a reason, but he’s quickly forgetting why under the assault from his own desire and the emotions bleeding out through Killua’s scent, something he can’t hide the way he so often turns his face away. He’s not turning away now. They’re breathing each other’s air, and Gon drinks him in like coming up for air after minutes underwater.

He clenches his hands in his pockets to stop himself from finding out once and for all if Killua tastes as good as he smells, and the small action reminds him that there was a point to this, something meaningless and silly and fun, because he’s going to crush one of the things he’s hanging onto if he’s not careful. But it’s insignificant beneath the scents he’s breathing in, so _damn_ close now.

Killua smells like the forest they raced through and just an edge of sweat from the workout, and now wound up and tense from Gon advancing on him like this, but he smells _hungry_ , too, anticipating and longing and excited and – _damn. Damn!_ – a little bit scared.

_Not like this_ , Gon reminds himself, all the parts of him that are screaming at him to reach out and take what he wants, and the darker ones that know that Killua wouldn’t fight him for a second. _One day, please, one day – but not like this. I won’t. I won’t._

Back to the original plan. But the hunger in Killua’s eyes is clear, and Gon will not forget.

Instead he does three things in quick succession, as fast as he can because he doesn’t have long.

From one pocket, he whips out a folded-up piece of fabric, which unfolds itself even as he drops it onto Killua’s head.

From the other, he pulls out his phone, already switched on and over to the camera setting.

Almost at the same time, he leaps backwards, landing on the edge of the rock, and takes a picture as quickly as the camera will focus.

He gets only a second to see that the picture is exactly as fantastic as he thought it would be – Killua, with the lake behind him, and a look of dawning comprehension in his eyes all mixed in with the edges of that hungry-desperate-wanting look in his eyes, all under an oversized off-white sunhat.

Gon is going to catch absolute hell for this, but it’ll be worth it.

They’d been messing around in one of the resort park shops, for no reason in particular, just being teenagers for once, pulling things off shelves and playing with them. Killua had been trying to push a replacement for his favorite jacket on him and Gon had been having none of it, but had entertained himself by finding things for Killua to wear instead. Killua had actually liked the hat – he sunburns like anything, and hates sunscreen – until he happened to catch sight of himself in a mirror and noticed how feminine it made him look, and from then on out hated it.

Gon had bought it for him while he hadn’t been looking, and hidden it much more carefully than Killua had hidden the green jacket, because Gon had _loved_ the way he looked in it. It’s just a bit too big for him and it doesn’t really make him look like a girl, in Gon’s opinion, not in a bad way. It just makes him look like a strikingly attractive boy, accenting the smooth clean lines of his face and making his hair all but shine in contrast with the creamy off-white fabric.

But then Gon is officially not allowed to have opinions on clothes anymore, at least according to Killua.

It takes slightly longer than Gon expected for Killua to catch up with what just happened, which is very, very interesting, because it means he wasn’t the only one not thinking clearly.

“Give me that!” Killua yowls, all that fascinated wanting hunger turned to outrage like the flash of fire, and leaps for him.

Gon almost falls off the rock in his haste to retreat, and takes off running. He gets only a few steps before Killua knocks him over, jamming a foot in front of his to trip him and hip-checking him to the side so that he tumbles and brings his free hand up just in time to keep his friend away from the phone held protected against his chest, laughing.

Killua swears at him, and attacks him with the hat, perhaps in hopes of making Gon hate it too. It’s not the most effective weapon, and Gon manages to use the fleeting cover of the flailing piece of fabric to brace one foot and his free hand against the ground and roll them both. It gives him the chance to leap to his feet and get away, away from entirely unwarranted attack by hat and from the bits of himself that are screaming at him to keep Killua there, to pin him down and kiss him until he surrenders, to make the fight a different kind of dance.

Instead he runs.

For a few minutes the lakeshore is filled with shouting that would be incoherent to anyone else, until Gon is laughing too hard to keep eluding his faster, lighter best friend _and nothing more, not yet_ , and it doesn’t help that he’s been cornered on the branch of the tree that overhangs the water. He has to toss the phone away over Killua’s head as a distraction – he doesn’t see where it lands, except it didn’t splash into the water – and escape by plunging into the lake.

He knows from experience that Killua has a cat’s approach to water. He’s willing to swim, he’s a fine swimmer, but it has to be for a reason. It’s not his element the way it is Gon’s, while Gon has yet to meet a major body of open water he hasn’t wanted to dive into.

When he surfaces, brushing wet hair out of his eyes and wondering how anyone puts up with hair that gets in their face all the time, Killua has captured the phone and is stabbing irately at the screen.

“You changed the password again!” he yells at Gon, brandishing the phone at him.

“Not deleting it!” Gon calls back, grinning widely enough to hurt.

He’ll have to find somewhere to hide that picture before Killua gets hold of his latest password. He’s never deleting that picture. Or the memory.

Either memory.

Also, the lake water is helpfully cold.

* * *

_to be continued in part three_


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three/Three**

* * *

As soon as no one is looking at him, Killua is going to crawl under the bed and die.

…maybe not.

He’s been there – he’s been ready to die, he’s been cold and still and resigned to it; and he’s wanted to die, suffering, grieving, unable to see or think through the madness and pain of the loss of his best friend. While he’s grateful for many things, he’s particularly glad he can’t remember the end of that battle too clearly.

Killua is going to crawl under the bed and scream until he passes out.

This is a marginally better plan, although it will solve absolutely nothing. He’ll still have almost made an absolute fool of himself earlier. He’ll still have mistaken Gon playing for Gon intending to kiss him. He’ll still have painted an innocent gesture with tar. Tar is dark and sticky and filthy and once it gets onto something it never lets go; it stains and sullies and corrupts.

Killua _wants_ so badly, and in hiding it has convinced himself that there is something wrong with that desire, that to speak of it would be to ruin everything.

That he wants to crowd in close and catch Gon and hold him there and kiss him until he cries out, to learn the taste of him and the feel of skin and heat, to sleep not just beside him like a child but _with_ him, to have the right to touch the way he wants to, the way he finally understands why people want to do that, and to be wanted _back_ … Killua wants to make Gon understand how much the former child-assassin loves him. How much he owes that can never be repaid. That he would do anything – anything at all – to make Gon happy. That he could live all his life in Gon’s shadow and bask in it like the sun. These things will remain a secret, needy daydream, bitter for the pulse of _never, never, never_ in perfect counterpoint with _want, want, want._

Surely no one will notice if he leaves right now, and, even better, no one will hear him screaming until he can’t breathe. The harbor is full of people having fun and making noise. No wonder there aren’t any big predators native to the area – too many humans!

Anyone who thinks that a ravening pack of wolves is going to descend on this festival in pursuit of free food like, well, the ravening pack of humans descending on, etc., etc., doesn’t understand anything about wolves. But what the hell.

Said humans are splashing into and out of the water, getting on and off boats, eating and drinking, throwing things, talking, arguing, running, sitting on the ground getting in the way, and generally milling around and enjoying the wait for the music and the fireworks apparently scheduled for later tonight. That’s if the band ever gets their act together. From his perch on the roof of a covered dock, Killua can see that they have yet to get all of their devices plugged in. He can see the problem, too. There are two different people trying to get everything switched on, and one of them thinks the switches should be _up_ and the other one thinks the switches should be _down_ and they’re not talking to each other – Killua suspects they don’t even know they’re undoing each other’s work.

Also, the guy with the guitar, who was acting like he was in charge earlier, is busy bawling out the group Killua has labeled the Hair People. The Hair People have a boom box the size of a canoe (he’s pretty sure about this, since there are several brightly colored ones flailing around on the lake available for comparison) and about as loud as a speedboat (samples on the lake similarly available for comparison). The Hair People have set it up right next to the band’s stage, and are refusing to move.

There’s a really good chance someone’s going to get hit with the guitar, and Killua is mildly interested to find out whether the guitar or the hair will sustain more damage.

He swings his feet back and forth off the edge of the roof of the covered dock, aimlessly, and tries very hard to think about the Guitar Guy and the Hair People instead of how he’s going to look Gon in the eye without blushing when the other boy gets back up here.

At the moment it’s Killua’s job to hang on to this rooftop space, out of the way of the crowd but where they can see just about everything. Gon has run off to – theoretically – get some food and bring it back, leaving Killua to firstly, defend their outpost against the oncoming forces of life-jacketed kids looking for places to jump from into the lake and secondly, hate himself a lot.

This last was not specified. Killua’s improvising.

Gon has probably been waylaid by the people with the babies, who are corralling random people and enlisting them to take pictures of their kids. Killua isn’t sure who needs that many pictures of themselves and their kids grinning inanely, although the picture with the two toddlers suddenly attacking each other with brightly colored slush cones – and then shrieking about the cold and the shock of having ice unexpectedly shoved in their faces – is probably going to be a winner.

Or perhaps he’s been captured by the people standing around in a circle and kicking something – it’s not a ball, it doesn’t move right for that – trying to keep it up in the air. They’re very bad at it, and it keeps vanishing among the legs of passersby and forcing the players to dive to the ground after it, but that seems to be part of the fun. Killua can hear them mocking each other even over the roar of the crowd and –  _ow_ – speaker feedback. It’s exactly the sort of thing that Gon will dive right into, assuming that he’ll be welcomed and accepted and liked.

Vanishing is still an option. He could walk away, no further than the resort – he fantasizes sometimes that there’s a garrote-wire around his heart that will pull tight and bite deep if he pulls too hard or goes too far from Gon.

He’d tried. It had hurt so badly that Alluka had noticed, for all he’d tried to hide it from her. She had told him that he should go back, and had refused to let him argue that he should be looking after her.

Alluka, her brother has noticed, doesn’t think in terms of possible and impossible. (Nanika is worse.) They had decided that he belonged with “big brother Gon”, so it was going to happen. That had been that.

Belongs with? Yes. Of course he does. But Killua is ready to argue with them both about their claim that he’d be _happier_.

It’ll be nice and quiet under the bed, except for the screaming. It’ll be dark, at least, and there won’t be any reflective surfaces, not even the lake lit up by late-evening fading sunlight. He won’t have to look  _himself_ in the eye, either, and he won’t have to face up to the humiliation of almost losing control again. He can’t afford to lose control, because he’ll tear apart all that they’ve built and smash it to pieces for just one moment of stolen desire.

Maintaining is hard. But if he does it for long enough maybe it’ll be a habit, and he’ll adapt and grow accustomed to this deprivation as he has to so many others.

_It used to be so easy,_ Killua thinks, but can’t bring himself to regret it.

It used to be easy to disappear because he used to be no one. There was nothing inside him but the cold and the unyielding bite of steel and the inevitability of a predator’s leap. He’d been bitter and smooth and clean and hollow. A ghost. When he’d been small he’d heard someone call him that, once, although not to his face, and he’d half believed it.

Now he’s so real it hurts, with a body that won’t shut up and a heart that won’t listen, but he can still disappear if he wants to, even without _zetsu_ or the steps of a movement half a dance.

“Yeah, right,” Killua says to no one in particular, and goes nowhere, and curses himself. It had been easy to be a ghost, with no more will of his own than a blade, a bullet, an explosive, but it hadn’t been enough. He’d been shocked to find that people could fill that void and that they could keep him from falling, and that one bright-eyed boy could keep him warmer than he’d ever been.

And now he wants _more_?

He has no right to more.

Killua raises his head and hides all of this behind a façade of dignity and confidence and pride, locking away the humiliation and the shame, and that the dichotomy of that makes him feel like a fraud, a fake, a pretender to what should have been so simple.

He will make the lie his armor and a steel cage.

So fortified, he listens for a while to a couple of people – literally a couple, he thinks – who had been out on the lake in a canoe earlier in the afternoon. It’s easier than thinking about all the things he wants to do and mustn’t. They’re ranting to anyone who will listen about the monster they saw.

“It’s got giant hands!” the man says, waving his in the face of the nearest bystander. “They came right out of the water! Two huge hands, trying to grab us!”

The woman contributes, just as hysterically, that “It was _hideous_! And huge! It nearly knocked us right out of the boat! We lost a paddle!”

“I hit it with the other one!” her partner says proudly, and she beams at him.

“Do the roar!” she insists.

He makes a face of intense concentration and produces a low bellowing noise that becomes a gasp, although whether this is the sound he meant to make or just a result of running out of breath isn’t clear.

“Its breath was awful!” he continues to the knot of people now accumulating around him and the woman. “It stared at us and we shouted at it to go away, and it did! It went back into the water and it had the body of a giant snake and it was reaching up at us the whole time!”

She shudders. “Like it was drowning, with those hands grasping for something to pull on!”

Their audience goes “Ooooh!” and Killua pointedly does not observe the way the Monster Couple are clinging to each other, in between extravagant gestures, as if their bodies are stuck together.

“I can do this,” he tells himself.

“Do what?” Gon calls up to him, emerging from the gathered crowd. He navigates through them without missing a step even though he probably can’t see most of them over the tower of boxed-up food balanced in his arms.

“You can’t get all that up here without dropping it.” Killua smirks at him even though Gon can’t see him, knowing his friend can hear it in his voice. “Bet I could.”

“Can so! You’re on! Watch!”

He attracts quite a lot of attention away from the Monster Couple as he tries to rearrange everything so he can leap to the roof without dislodging any of it. There aren’t any good handholds for an easier climb, even if he could get a hand free. There’s no way that’s going to happen.

But at least one of the bags dangling from his arms contains tubs of what smells like egg drop soup. So that doesn’t get him very far, especially after a misstep leaves him running in circles desperately trying to balance the tottering pile of boxes without stepping over the edge of the dock into the water, which he can’t see because of the aforementioned tower.

“There’s a trick to it!” Killua tells him, as unhelpfully as possible.

Gon demands, “Really?”

“Uh huh…”

One of the bystanders, the one with the two little dogs who have been barking on and off at everything possible, chimes in with a really bad suggestion about Gon balancing one of the boxes on his head. He obviously hasn’t noticed the hair. But that opens the floodgates for everyone else to come up with ideas. Safely on the roof of the dock, Killua kicks his feet back and forth and grins.

They’ve gotten everything spread out on the much-battered grass and are debating balance and weight ratios before Gon catches on.

“Hey, wait a second! The trick is that Killua is going to help! Here, take this!”

“Oh?” Killua asks teasingly, not moving to accept the bag being held up towards him. “Why should I do that?”

“One of them has chocolate cupcakes.”

_Dammit._ “Fiiiine…”

Their audience gives them a round of applause once all the boxes and bags and Gon have successfully reached the roof. Gon sketches out an elaborate bow and waves until Killua starts some sarcastic applause of his own, and the wave turns into a swipe at his friend.

He misses, and the resulting scuffle sends two boxes threatening to fall off the edge of the roof and into the lake below.

“Is the chocolate okay?” Killua demands when the runaway food has been rescued.

“I dunno,” Gon shrugs, checking the contents of the box he’d grabbed. “This one has sushi.”

“This one has pizza,” the other boy reports. “Which one has the cupcakes? You promised me chocolate.”

“Beats me.”

They look at each other for a second, each daring the other to smile first.

“I guess we’ll just have to eat all of it to find out,” Killua says, not quite managing to sound sorry about this.

So they do. People wander past and nod to them – Killua spots at least one person pointing a camera phone at them and completely fails to care. The two little dogs get loose and run around trailing their leashes, chasing after a big shaggy dog that wants nothing to do with them, pursued by their owner. The Hair People summon reinforcements against the forces of the Guitar Guy and his ally Microphone Stand Wielder. A woman with a tablet device tries to round up some of the nearby kids and get them to do a dance for the benefit of whoever she’s planning to share the video with. The kids retaliate by starting up a chanting sort of song that gets progressively dirtier as it goes along, even if they probably don’t know what all the words mean, and she records most of it before she actually starts listening.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Gon asks after they’ve tried and failed to understand what the guy in the hat talking in a loud monotone nearby is actually talking about.

For a moment Killua thinks he’s talking about the Monotonous Hat Guy, and then he sees Gon waving his useless plastic fork at the lakeside festival as a whole, so he amends his original “No,” to “Oh, wait, yes I do. That idiot Pariston’s stupid picnic idea.”

“It wasn’t that stupid,” Gon objects mildly, because he’d had fun.

“Yes, it was,” Killua insists. It had been _exactly_ that stupid, even if he’d had fun too.

Gon offers a halfhearted but amused, “We went…” as if this were proof of anything.

It’s not. “We don’t have a great history of avoiding things that are stupid.”

The other boy laughs. “We saw some friends!”

This, Killua knows, means “people we know who aren’t necessarily mad at us…much…at the moment…”, so it incorporates a lot of people. Gon makes friends easily. It’s a kind of magic. Also, all the people they want to avoid aren’t the sort of people to show up at Pariston’s stupid Association picnic idea.

Because… _Pariston_. The man is nuts. Most Hunters are, but…still.

The Hunter Association does not need an annual meeting where members are encouraged to show up. Hunters do best when they’re very far away from other Hunters, unless there’s an actual _goal_ , like something to hit. So who the hell invites the entire Hunter Association to a giant outdoor meeting and then calls it a picnic?

Freakin’ _Pariston_.

Rumor had it that it had started out as a summons, because Pariston is a _special_ kind of nuts, and then someone – maybe Cheadle – had rephrased it a little more diplomatically.

At least he hadn’t made it a potluck. Instead the man had just spent the equivalent of someone’s yearly income on catering, because Hunters eat like it’s a competitive sport.

Gon and Killua, like most sixteen-year-old boys, approve of free food in quantity.

Also, they’d heard a rumor that Pariston and Ging were in the middle of a complex, intricate, deeply philosophical and carefully reasoned debate about which of them hated the other more and which of them was a bigger idiot, and that there was an outside chance that they both might attend this meeting/picnic/thing to continue the debate in person.

As long as there was a vague possibility that Ging might show up somewhere, Gon was going to show too, and Killua had, inevitably, followed him, trying not to show how screamingly jealous he was that Gon would _still_ take off running after the faintest trace of his father.

Would Gon drop everything and run after _him_ , if things were different? he’d wondered, and then had needed to come up with a whole new range of curses to level at himself, because Gon _had_ and Killua was being stupid.

Ging hadn’t made an appearance, which hadn’t surprised anyone, although a counter-rumor had made its way around the increasingly tense meeting. (There had been a distinct connection between the amount of food left, and the ability of Hunters to put up with each other.) It claimed that the original rumor had been put out there by _either_ Pariston _or_ Ging _or_ possibly both of them in opposition, as part of some stupidly complicated chess-game move that only made sense if you thought about it upside down and backwards and thirty-some moves ahead.

“There was free food, Gon. _That’s_ why we went.”

Gon doesn’t debate this, because by now he’s laughing with the memory of what had been an incredibly surreal afternoon, even for them, but he does add, “And we might need a favor off Pariston someday.” Leorio had told them this, as he’d shown up for the same reasons.

The other boy dismisses this, shrugging. “He likes you anyway. Or at least he’s got to pretend to.” _Since you sort of won the Chairman’s position for him, I heard, even if he didn’t actually want it._

Gon surveys the party – the ongoing battle between the Guitar Guy and the Hair People, the cluster of young women with the glow-in-the-dark balloons conspiring to inflate and release them once it gets dark in order to scare the socks off gullible people, the guy who’s way too old to be cheering at everything, the people in the red speedboat who have dropped an inner tube off the back of the boat and are towing other people around on it, the million-and-five kids who get to be actual children. “This is more fun,” he declares.

For the sake of argument, Killua volleys back, “I dunno. No one’s declared a blood feud on anyone yet.”

This had happened at Pariston’s stupid picnic (Killua is going to start capitalizing that, especially if there’s going to be a Second Annual Stupid Picnic). A gathering of Hunters is more condensed crazy than ever needs to be in any one place at any one time. Things had been set on fire. Blood had been shed. A minor war had been declared and quickly canceled under the Treaty of Booze for All. At least three people had gotten shot – none of them with actual bullets. To settle some feud so old that no one really knew what it was about, a motorcycle race had been staged around the battered field nearby. Quite what motorcycles had to do with the feud, _nobody knew_. A fight had then broken out because someone had moved the finish line and the actual owners of the motorcycles were demanding them back.

Not to be outdone, Gon and Killua had collected their friends and everyone juvenile enough to throw food at people, and they’d all built a fort out of tables and chairs and semi-portable bits of landscape and anything else that had come to hand and done so. And they had been the _least_ crazy area of the picnic.

Gon eats a tangle of noodles off his fork and pokes his best friend with it. “That’s why it’s more fun! Hey, wait, did those guys seriously say they saw a monster?”

The We-Saw-a-Monster People are still at it, reenacting their monster sighting with much waving of hands and an enthusiastic imitation of the creature’s roar.

“Yeah, but I’ve been listening to them describe it. From the sound of it, I think it was a moose.”

“They don’t know what a moose is?” Gon asks incredulously. “How can anyone not know what a moose is?”

“Well,” Killua points out with a shrug, “they probably saw some giant flying purple frogs, too.”

“There’s giant flying purple frogs?”

The white-haired boy gives into the impulse to punch him, and does so. “ _No_. There are no giant flying purple frogs. There’s no monster. They were seeing things. Even I can smell that they’re stoned, Gon, seriously.”

Gon wrinkles his nose and Killua suddenly finds the Monster Couple’s continued pantomime incredibly interesting, because it makes him look far too cute. “Yeah, they kind of reek,” Gon admits. “Darn, no monster.” Of course he’s disappointed.

He  _cannot_ break this. He will not. So Killua can do this.

He can critique the music, and watch the water ski people and the tubing people try to knock each other over with dueling wakes before teaming up on the canoe people, and make runs to the different food distributors, who turn out to be operating out of trailers, and insist that Gon doesn’t understand the importance of this discovery.

“Food comes in trucks! This is _big_! There’s a _whole truck full of cupcakes_ , Gon!”

He can steal food from Gon and wage impromptu chopstick wars and make plans to hotwire the cupcake truck. Gon refuses to help with this plan in any way, not even as a distraction, much less with the actual driving. Killua’s going to teach him to drive someday. He can listen to the Monster Couple tell their story for the fifth time to anyone left who will listen, although it doesn’t look like anyone believes them except for some of the kids, who have adopted the supposed monster’s roar and made it their own.

It is enough, to be here with Gon and happy with him, side by side. It is.

This is everything he needs to live.

He can just _be_.

He holds onto this resolution as it gets darker and darker, as the Guitar Guy’s band cedes the space to the Hair People and their boom box, as children start to ask when the fireworks are going to begin, and people settle down onto unfolded chairs and spread-out blankets and upturned canoes and the handful of picnic tables scattered around the lakeshore, until it’s almost too dark to see – but not quite.

“I don’t get it,” Gon says.

They’ve been lying around looking at the stars, which are wonderfully visible, away from any light source larger than the town. Killua is sprawled out on his back, entertaining the optical illusion of falling away towards the stars that strikes if he tunes down his senses just a bit, so he’s as comfortable as it’s possible to be on a rooftop. He’s slept in worse places; this is perfectly acceptable. He’s reluctant to move.

“It can’t be that much fun,” the other young Hunter continues anyway, persisting.

“Huh? What can’t?” But he’s already half-sitting up and looking around, following Gon’s line of sight, and is suddenly very glad it’s dark already, because he  _knows_ he’s blushing.

Gon can only be referring to the couples who have taken advantage of the dark to kiss and paw at each other in relative privacy, ignorant of the dark-trained, night-adapted Hunter eyes watching them.

Killua can barely comprehend that kind of freedom – sure, he wants, but that’s a secret. Gon is off-limits and always will be, because there are things he can’t touch lest they shatter and leave him bleeding out from the cuts.

It is enough. It is _enough_.

“Kissing,” Gon specifies. He sounds blissfully nonchalant about it. Is it nice, Killua wonders, to be able to say things like that, so freely – to not _want_ so badly it chokes him? It must be nice.

_Yeah,_ Killua doesn’t say, because the word has become caught in his throat and he’s being strangled by all the ones he should be saying. _Seriously. What’s up with people and kissing? Adults are weird. Isn’t it great we’re still_ freaking twelve-year-olds _with_ no clue _?_

Somewhere very far away, someone totally unrelated to Killua, but who sounds remarkably like him, says, “You could kiss me.”

He hears himself say it, and can’t believe it. He didn’t just say that. There’s no way he just said that. He imagined it, vividly, but he didn’t say it aloud. That’s what he would say, if he hadn’t just resolved to remember to be content with the best thing he’s ever had.

Gon is turning to look at him, bright-eyed with interest and curiosity.

…he said that out loud.

What the hell is in this food? Did the Monster Couple get to it? How and when did they do that? Could they possibly be so stoned that they’re contagious? Except no, that probably counts as a poison. He’s probably immune. That could be useful someday.

Someday very much not today.

New explanation desperately needed. Other than Killua being, despite the competition, the biggest idiot he knows.

Maybe there’s a magical-beast mimic around here. Yes. That must be it. This would be a perfect hunting ground for it, with everyone milling around and not knowing each other well enough to spot the mistakes.

They should go find it. They should go find it right now.

Except Gon is looking at him, and there’s something in his eyes Killua doesn’t recognize and can’t make sense of, and what the _hell_?

“I mean,” Killua desperately tries to backpedal, except every word he says just gets stupider, and he’s falling, falling, falling. “If you wanted to. I dunno. But. That is. We could find out. As an experiment. And. So. We’d know. Um. Forget it.”

He’s really going to crawl under the bed and die now.

It’s dark. He could make a run for it. No, damn it, Gon’s night vision is even better than his.

How long does it take to die of humiliation? The mimic will replace him, and it’ll say more stupid things, and they’ll be so stupid that Gon will realize that _he didn’t just say that_.

And they can pretend that this never happened, and everything will be fine.

Not great. It’ll still hurt. And he’ll never be able to raise the subject again, which is _fine_ because he’s never going to. So…fine.

He can live with fine.

“Okay,” says Gon.

Even stupider words die unspoken beneath the weight of their undisputed king, which is “Really?”

“Sure,” Gon says, as if there’s nothing to it. “I’d like to kiss you.”

Killua stares, feeling himself tremble and unable to spare even a thought for cursing himself for it, everything focused on the other boy – the sheer blinding sincerity in his eyes and the smile without a trace of mockery and the line of his body, alert and relaxed all at once, paying attention to him.

For the first time in a very long time it’s unbearable to have that gaze turned on him. Gon’s eyes are flaying him to the bone, and the lies are rusting away into the blood burning through him, deafening and dizzying.

“If that’s okay,” Gon adds, reaching out a hand the same way Killua has seen him reach out to wild beasts and frightened strays, as if he expects to be bitten but is determined to try.

“I – yeah. It’s okay,” Killua manages, even as that hand touches his cheek and he fights the urge to turn into it and nuzzle at Gon’s palm like an animal begging to be petted. “I said you could, if you wanted to. Since you wanted to know, and. I mean. I don’t know either.” He’s losing the battle even as he fumbles what words he has left, but the touch is so pleasant he’s finding it hard to regret.

“Right,” Gon agrees, and maybe the amused quirk at the corner of his mouth is a trick of the light, an illusion of phone-screen flashes and the flicker of people walking back and forth in front of the dimmed lights of the abandoned stage. “Let’s find out.”

It’s permission, Killua realizes even through the haze of mingled panic and desire, feeding off each other and fighting to the death inside him. It’s an invitation, even if it’s just for now, just this once, the only time this will work.

And  _that_ , perhaps, will be enough.

“Yes,” he says into the maddening scent of Gon’s skin, and forces himself away from it only to lean that last little bit forward and touch his lips to Gon’s.

Gently, carefully – he holds the panting, sobbing tempest boiling beneath his ribs on a steel-barbed chain, choking it back the harder it pulls. He maps his movements to Gon’s, not daring to take more than is offered, letting the other boy guide him with the hand against his cheek and the movements he makes. Starving as he is, Killua will devour soft nudges and lips barely parted and breath-quiet sounds of surprise and interest and curiosity as if they were a feast, and hoard the bones of them to gnaw dry and empty.

Only a  _taste,_ of everything he wants, but a taste was all Gon agreed to, surely. Killua will steal when he has to, has done before and will do again, but it is his own heart he would be plundering, to take what was not offered.

He kisses Gon slowly and delicately and carefully, praying that this moment will never end, and feels despair catch in the pit of his throat even as Gon kisses him back.

Killua has to force himself to pull away. Another moment, another breath, another brush of lips against his, and everything will shatter.

A breath separates them. An inch. Killua opens eyes he doesn’t remember closing, feeling for the first time the fingernails dug into his own palms to keep them from reaching out and smoothing themselves across Gon’s shoulders and down to his waist and keeping him forever.

The hand on his cheek moves down to his jaw and forces him to meet Gon’s eyes. They are burning, burning, burning.

“Idiot,” Gon says fondly, and kisses him for real.

Truth is strong fingers in his hair, not petting but claiming; it’s the edges of the roof tiles beneath his shoulders as the hand that’s come to rest over his heart splays out over his chest as if counting off ribs and marking each one with a scorching fire. Truth is the quake that runs down his spine at the sound Gon makes when his tongue touches Killua’s lips and he parts them to let him in; truth is recognizing the relief in that whimper because it’s mirrored in the shreds of Killua’s wail of  _finally_ that coils between their mouths, cradled in the nest they’ve made for it together.

It should be awkward. It isn’t. It’s as right as gravity, victorious always however long they manage to defy it; even if they had burned themselves up to escape it, it would have caught them another way, somewhere else.

Killua is drowning, and he doesn’t care. The pure rightness of it tears through him, and sets him afire, and he breathes it in.

Fire and water (Gon would never let him drown) annihilate each other; they smash each other to steam, all heat and pressure and breath, and together they’ll soar.

There is no such thing as enough. Enough is a lie, it was always a lie.

There will never be enough of the way their tongues meet and struggle, tasting each other without the slightest trace of surrender, of the delicious shock of the way their bodies fit together even with layers of clothes still between them as everything else disappears, of the taste of Gon’s skin as Killua surrenders to a whipped-back impulse and hides his face in that open hand. There will only ever be the delight of finding all the ways they complement and complete each other, all the uncounted and uncountable ways.

Killua is never going to stop kissing Gon for anything short of the monster that has just crawled out of the lake.

Old lessons were too well learned for him to not notice movement and the stir of water and the sound of the lake vomiting up a giant creature. Everything he is, right now, exists in this moment like the bite of bone-deep pain but  _sweet_ even as his body screams with the shockingly alien sensation of desire fulfilled. But everything he  _was_ (before the days of Gon-my-friend, and before this moment of Gon-my- _love;_ the kiss is a knife dividing time in two) sees the threat in the movement over Gon’s shoulder, the shifting darkness eclipsing the stars above and the false stars of the town.

A moment ago everything was impossible and simple, a matter only of the taste and the touch of lips and tongue and skin against his, of bodies learning each other all over again in maps of flames and hot blood, of the absolutely sinful cry he muffles against Gon’s throat as his beloved’s hand dips to come to rest against his skin, of nothing else mattering but the next touch, but now –

Killua could hate the whole world, some days: it has the most  _perverse_ sense of irony.

The Monster Couple’s monster  _is_ huge, and it  _is_ hideous, although still mostly hidden in the darkness. The distant light from the resort town and the small lights here on the shore make it only a shape and movement rather than something with details. It is a large shape, though, with the ponderous inevitability of something that has never met anything it cannot muscle through.

It is not a moose.

And it does indeed have giant hands that don’t fit at all with the water snake body or the head with the same general aerodynamic refinement of an old run-over boot. It’s waving those hands around in wide slow arcs as if trying to paddle away the light from the fireworks, which are all going off at once as someone trips over the controls and too many fuses are lit by accident. It roars its gasping, bellowing roar at the flashes, but in flinching away it moves towards a cluster of people who are staring at it as if it’s just one more thing for their entertainment, a show put on for their benefit.

Someone applauds. Someone else screams. A baby starts crying, and others take up the cue like someone had waved a baton.

The creature from out of the lake coils around and rears up to look towards the noises, heavy head swaying back and forth as if unsure where to strike first.

Camera flashes start going off, painting the darkened shoreline with fleeting, tiny stars that chip away at Killua’s night vision, leaving echoes of sparks floating in his eyes.

…he’s seeing stars from something. Maybe the camera flashes. Maybe because pulling away for breath would involve not kissing Gon, and it’s far more important to never stop kissing Gon, maybe even if a freaking monster has just climbed out of the lake and is looking at a festival full of tourists as if unsure whether they are terrifying, entertaining, or delicious. Can’t they look after themselves for _five minutes_ while everything and the future light up and pour themselves through a kiss he would have cut his own throat for?

That otherwise incredibly stupid movie last night was right – coming back to life _is_ like being struck by lightning, except lightning is Killua’s weapon, and the most power he’s ever channeled was nothing like this. _This_ is what it takes to bring someone to life.

But any second now the screaming is going to start in earnest, and then the running, and there’s a very good chance that this creature will chase them _because_ they’re running, and things will get messy and he’ll have to stop kissing Gon anyway because monsters are sort of their problem.

Doing something about it still seems far less important than Gon’s hand under his shirt, at the small of his back, holding him, _wanting_ him, warm and real, rough with work and the wilds and striking new sparks with every slight movement, calluses and fingernails rasping against his spine like matches. It’s insignificant next to the taste of Gon’s skin on his tongue – he could _live_ on that taste – meaningless set against the fact that under his hands Gon, too, is shaking with the _want_ that Killua feels every day. It’s nothing compared to the desperate wicked rightness of how well they fit together, that every nerve is lit up and screaming to the counterpoint pulse between their bodies.

“…should –” Killua says, a strangled gasp of a word. It’s not the first word that comes to mind, or even the first three – that honor goes to _shit_ and _NO!_ and _seriously?_ in quick succession – but it’s a start.

That Gon’s breath catches in his throat in a _whine_ feeds those sparks until they clamor to become an inferno. Lake monster be _damned_ , it can wait: he needs to make Gon make that noise again.

Before he can, Gon turns to follow his gaze –  _blasphemy_ , Killua wants to howl,  _come back_ – and even in the darkness Killua can see his eyes go wide at the sight of the creature from the lake.

“There is a monster!” he blurts, stunned, and curses, “Damn it.” While the curse is mild the  _intent_ is a treasure. Gon  _loves_ monsters and mystery creatures, he should be thrilled that there’s something new and strange and interesting flailing at the idiot who’s trying to point and launch the remains of the fireworks display at it, but he’s not, because  _he_ doesn’t want to stop what they’re doing either.

He will taste that curse from Gon’s lips, later, Killua decides.

Still Gon hesitates, and the hand that tightens on Killua’s waist is a benediction, a statement of  _mine_ ; the snarl of frustration that dies almost unspoken in his throat (but Killua hears it) a blessing.

“We’re not done, Killua,” Gon says, challenging him to deny any of this.

There is a monster and they have work to do. Screw it all.

Killua twists to knock him off balance, sweeps his legs out from under him with a single slicing kick, and tangles their limbs together to flip them both, so that he can pin Gon down and kiss him hard, recklessly, ruthless and relentless, promising and uncompromising, defiant and half-mad with delight.

A thousand and more imaginary monsters melt away to dust, and their dying screams and wails and curses – liars all! – are drowned unheard beneath a silent roar of triumph.

“We’re not even close to done,” Killua promises him, meeting that challenge and matching it with one of his own, because now –  _now_ – this is both of them.

As long as it’s both of them, they’re unstoppable, and they  _shine_ .

Gon laughs, and it’s glorious, and they grin at each other even as they rise to their feet and prepare for battle, as the rush of the new strange wonderful thrill of desire becomes the beat of the dance they dance so well.

“Let’s go hunting,” says Killua.

* * *

_Author’s Note/Disclaimer:_ All credit to Janet Kagan’s story “The Loch Moose Monster”, in which the monster in the lake actually was a moose. Find it in the novel _Mirabile_ , which I thoroughly recommend.


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